


Of Books and Architecture

by notsafeforowls



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14343774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsafeforowls/pseuds/notsafeforowls
Summary: Mick doesn't want to talk about his family. Instead, he and Nate find some surprising common ground.Takes place after 'Welcome to the Jungle.'





	Of Books and Architecture

**Author's Note:**

> References to child abuse and self-harm.

It wasn’t the same day anymore. Mick squinted at the clock that Ray had set up – he’d claimed it was to keep track of cooking times if he had to leave the food – until he managed to make out which hand was which in the dim room. Three in the morning.  Great.  He’d been sitting here at the top of the steps, propped against the wall, for at least four hours.

 

He’d changed as soon as he’d made it back to the ship and dumped the uniform in the trash. Showered, too, but he could still feel it on him, like it had stripped away an entire layer of skin, leaving him raw and exposed.

 

“Gideon, tell me what happens?”

 

There was a long pause, as if Gideon didn’t want to answer. She knew the full question. She always knew what people were talking about, even when they didn’t want her to, even when they hadn’t said anything.

 

“Dick Rory will still perish in the fire in 1990.”

 

And, yes, Mick had seen that coming, but it still made him swallow hard. Time changed slowly, but he’d known the second that he’d set foot on the ship that he hadn’t really managed to change anything. He’d still felt the same and, when he’d checked later that night, he’d still had all the same scars. Gideon had even confirmed that the healed fractures and breaks were still the same.

 

But part of him had wanted to be wrong.

 

Mick took a long drink from the bottle of beer before asking, “What about my mom?”

 

“Carol Rory will still perish in the fire as well.”

 

“Figured,” Mick muttered, finishing the bottle in a handful of swallows. The person he’d wanted to save more than anyone else, and she still ended up dead because of him. Mick twisted the cap from another bottle of beer and let it fall down the handful of steps to the floor to join the others.

 

Smoke inhalation. She’d never woken up, and it had always been the one thing that Mick had been grateful for. She’d never known what was happening, and had never known that she was wrong about him turning out okay in the end.

 

“I thought someone was still up.”

 

Mick didn’t even look up.

 

“How long have you been standing there like an idiot, Pretty?”

 

“Long enough. I, uh, didn’t want to interrupt.”

 

He looked up at that. Nate was standing just inside the door, leaning awkwardly against the wall. From the look of his hair, mussed and sticking up in all directions, as well as his sweatpants and t-shirt with at least three holes in it, he’d at least tried to get some sleep, but there was tenseness in his shoulders that Mick recognised.

 

“Since when?” It wasn’t as if there was anything worse that Nate could walk in on at this point. And it looked like Nate was thinking the same, judging from the way his gaze flicked briefly to Mick’s covered forearm.

 

Nate slowly straightened up, walking across the room like he was trying not to creep around. He failed.

 

“Good point,” he said as he settled at the other side of the steps, leaning against the wall and curling in on himself, his knees almost up at his chin. Nate looked like a scared little kid like that. “Can’t sleep. You?”

 

Mick shrugged, or tried to. The wall got in the way a bit, but he assumed that Nate got the general idea, from the way he nodded.

 

“Want to talk about it?” Nate asked.

 

“No.”

 

They sat in silence for a while, and Mick watched the clock, wondering if he would even get to sleep tonight, or if it would be a night of drinking until he wouldn’t be able to tell the next morning if he’d fallen asleep or passed out.

 

“I hated that book when I was a kid,” Nate said suddenly.

 

“What?”

 

Nate gestured towards the book abandoned on one of the steps. “Les Misérables. My dad made me read it when I was a kid because I wanted to read some of the books from his office. He said that if I couldn’t handle the fiction, then I wasn’t allowed to touch the non-fiction books. I think I finished it out of spite.” He made a face. “Think I ‘accidentally’ binned it when I moved out for the same reason.”

 

“Read half of it when I was a teenager even though I wasn’t supposed to.” Mick curled and uncurled his fingers, remembering the time he’d been caught reading in his room when he was supposed to be at school. One of the only times his old man had ever bothered to go in there, and he’d broken two of Mick’s fingers.

 

To his credit, Nate didn’t say anything, but Mick could feel his eyes on him.

 

The first copy had burned up in the fire, and Mick wasn’t even entirely sure why he’d got Gideon to fabricate him this one. He hadn’t even enjoyed it that much the first time around (read by flashlight in the middle of the night then he’d finished it using a copy from the library in juvy), let alone the second or third times (the same copy, two different times in Iron Heights). But it had been the first thing he’d done after he’d finished trashing the uniform.  

 

“I think I’ve got a copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in my room if you want to borrow it?”

 

“Depends. Does he ever shut up about architecture?”

 

Nate laughed quietly. “No, he doesn’t.”

 

“I’ll pass.” There were some things that Mick wasn’t even pretending that he didn’t give a shit about, and architecture was one of them. Who even cared, as long as whatever it was stayed up and didn’t look too ugly?

 

“Good call.” Nate tapped his fingers against the floor. “You know what I’ve never read? Of Mice and Men. I was supposed to read it, but I ended up in hospital again, and I never got around to it.”

 

“Even I’ve read Of Mice and Men,” Mick said, “and I haven’t even read Lord of the Rings.”

 

That got Nate’s attention. He leaned forward, eyes wide.

 

“You’ve never read Lord of the Rings?”

 

“Never had the time.” He had owned all the books at one point, but then the apartment had been raided and he hadn’t been able to go back. Which had sucked, because they hadn’t been bought in a bookshop either – they’d been early printings that Mick had stolen from a rare book dealer.  

 

“Give me a minute.”

 

Mick didn’t have a chance to ask what for before Nate was up and jumping down the steps before running out.

 

 

 

It took him a lot longer than a minute. Mick watched the minutes tick by until Nate had been gone for almost twenty minutes. He was beginning to wonder if Nate had ended up falling asleep in the middle of whatever the hell he’d been going to do when he heard footsteps and voices.

 

“I thought you were in the library tonight.” Ray. Fuck.

 

It was easy enough to get Pretty off the subject of ‘Nam and his old man, but Mick doubted that Haircut would leave well enough alone.

 

“You know how it is; I needed a change of scenery, especially after today. Yesterday.”

 

“Oh, I know. Hey, have you seen Mick tonight? I checked his room earlier and he didn’t answer, and I checked the galley a few hours ago. I wanted to see if he was okay after yesterday.”

 

Mick closed his eyes. Yeah, he was going to have to go through an entire conversation that he didn’t want to have – and that he definitely wasn’t drunk enough for.

 

“You know what, I saw him earlier, and I think Gideon gave him some sleeping pills or something, that’s probably why you couldn’t find him.”

 

Mick missed what came next, but he raised an eyebrow when Nate finally returned, holding a pile of books.

 

“Sleeping pills?” he asked.

 

Nate shrugged as he sat down, beside Mick this time, and held the books between them. “You try coming up with a lie that wouldn’t make Ray want to ask even more. You being zonked out on sleeping pills was the first thing I thought of. Anyway, here.”

 

When Mick didn’t move, Nate pushed the books towards him until he almost dumped them in Mick’s lap.

 

“What’s this?” Mick asked as he gave in and took them, but he knew what they were as soon as he saw the cover of the one on the top. He carefully removed his gloves before he took a closer look.

 

The Fellowship of the Ring. The Two Towers. The Return of the King. They were old copies, dog-eared with the edges of the pages a bit discoloured, but when Mick opened The Fellowship of the Ring, the pages inside were almost perfect, although they had the slightly grainy feel that made Mick think that they’d been read and touched dozens, maybe even a hundred, times. Inside the front cover, Nate had written ‘NATHANIEL HEYWOOD. 1992.’

 

“I thought you could borrow them. It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Nate said quickly. “You probably want copies of your own, but if you don’t want to buy them or fabricate some, then you can read these ones.”

 

“These are good.” Mick ran his finger across the edge of The Two Towers. “Never borrowed a book from anybody before, usually only libraries.”

 

Nate’s smile was so bright that something clenched in Mick’s chest.

 

“I never had anybody to lend books to before,” he admitted as he settled down beside Mick, leaning back and closing his eyes as he yawned. “Well, I’d lend history books to people, but it’s not the same. I liked those books, but I didn’t love them, and the people I was lending them to were co-workers, not people I’m – I’m friends with.”

 

Mick turned his head just enough until he could get a good look at Nate’s face. There was a faint blush on his cheeks, but his eyes were closed, and his breathing was already beginning to even out. As Mick watched, he slid to the side a little, until he was leaning against Mick just enough for Mick to feel the warmth of his body through their clothes.

 

“This isn’t really a comfortable place to sleep, Pretty.” Mick knew; he’d done it a few times before.

 

“Neither is a bench press,” Nate mumbled.

 

There was a little voice in his head that sounded a little like Snart, and a lot like the person Mick was trying not to be anymore. It was telling Mick to push Nate away and tell him where to go – and it wasn’t bed. But Mick didn’t really want to listen to that voice; Nate was warm and solid against him, already beginning to snore softly.

 

Instead, Mick opened The Fellowship of the Ring. He could probably get through a chapter or two before he’d have to wake Nate up before he started drooling on his shoulder or something.

 

And there was a copy of, Of Mice and Men in his room somewhere that he’d have to find in the morning.


End file.
